Zoho Writer Going Offline. Whither Google?

We had a nice little pow-wow with the folks at Google yesterday, in which they showed off their ridiculous Manhattan campus (the rec room was nice and all, guys, but honestly--the next time we're there, that fro-yo machine better...

We had a nice little pow-wow with the folks at Google yesterday, in which they showed off their ridiculous Manhattan campus (the rec room was nice and all, guys, but honestly--the next time we're there, that fro-yo machine better be in working order) and talking Google Docs with in-house spreadsheet guru Jonathan Rochelle. There was a lot of reminiscing about the days of Lotus 1-2-3, and ExtremeTech's Michael Muchmore, presumably still jittery from having just consumed the first espresso he'd ever made himself (yep, they have an in-office espresso machine), overwhelmed Rochelle with questions about formulas.

My own primary question was simple: When is Docs & Spreadsheets going offline? That may seem a bit counterintuitive, given that the way Google has been positioning it, the bulk of the app's primary appeal centers around its being online. You've got collaboration, storage, and a handful of other things that you can't do as effectively with a desktop-based program (read: Microsoft Office).

Given Google's big Gears announcement a few months back, however, the promise of an offline component to Google's office suite seems all the more imminent. Gears' big push was to help users continue their Web productivity, even when they're forced to work offline--like, say, on a plane. Why should dedicated Google Docs users be forced to put their work on hiatus until they're around another hotspot?

Google's answer was fairly non-committal. They couldn't really give us an answer either way, but as they had said earlier in our meeting, the game plan was to add new features when enough users had requested them. Well, a lot of users have been requesting this.

Something else that came up during the course of the meeting was the name Zoho. The online office suite is largely seen as Google's main competition in the space. A lot of users swear by Zoho. My own hands-on time with the program has been pretty positive, and Rochelle conceded that the app has a few features they would like to add to Docs and Spreadsheets.

When I got into the office this morning, there was an interesting e-mail from Zoho in my inbox: The company announced today that it's taking Writer offline. Oh, snap. Not only that, it's using Gears to do it. Whaaaa? Says Marie from Zoho: "Thing is, everyone thought the first online application to go offline via Google Gears would be Google Docs and Spreadsheets. Wrong. In this case, Zoho moves ahead of Google using Google's own technology!" [The punctuation is hers].

At the moment, users will have read-only access to Writer docs, with write functionality, "arriving shortly," and offline capabilities for other Zoho apps to follow later. It's pretty clear that Zoho's plan was to go offline before *ahem* someone else did.

To access the offline feature, log into your Zoho account and click "Go Offline," at the top of the screen. The app will download personal and shared docs. Point your browser here, to view the docs. A video demo can be seen here.

Brian Heater has worked at a number of tech pubs, including Engadget, Laptop, and PCMag (where he served as Senior Editor). Most recently, he was as the Managing Editor of TechTimes.com. His writing has appeared in Spin, Wired, Playboy, Entertainment Weekly, The Onion, Boing Boing, Publishers Weekly, The Daily Beast and various other publications. He hosts the weekly Boing Boing interview podcast RiYL, has appeared as a regular NPR contributor and shares his Queens apartment with a rabbit named Lucy.
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